How to Turn Off iTunes Match

Something peculiar happens when you’ve set up an iTunes Match account: your iTunes account no longer functions as it should. If you add some tunes to your iTunes account and then try to drag and drop those tunes into an iPhone that’s set up with iTunes Match, you will find that nothing happens. Before you start pulling your hair out in frustration, you should know that you haven’t done anything wrong. The problem is, in fact, your iTunes Match account. To counter this problem, you’ll have to learn all about toggling between iTunes Match and your iTunes account – much easier than it sounds!

How to Deactivate iTunes Match For a Short While

You paid for iTunes Match and you don’t want to throw that payment away, right? Well, the good news is that you don’t have to cancel your account or get rid of iTunes Match in order to make sure that your iTunes account functions properly. The only thing that you have to do is learn to outsmart iTunes Match. Here’s the best and easiest way to make sure that you can drag and drop your tunes from iTunes to your phone without getting caught up in iTunes Match madness.

First, disconnect your iPhone from your computer. Then, find the “Settings” app and look for “Music.” There, you will see the option to “Turn Off” iTunes Match. Turn Match off and connect your phone to your computer once again. Now, you should see your iPhone lights up as it normally would when looking at your iTunes screen. From there, you should be able to drag and drop any album or song from your iTunes account into your iPhone as you have previously done.

Activating iTunes Match Once Again

Now that you’ve successfully deactivated your iTunes Match account, don’t panic when iTunes Match doesn’t work – simply remember that you turned this option off. To re-activate Match, visit the same “Settings” app, find the “Music” option, and “Turn On” iTunes Match. From there, your iTunes Match account should function as it has in the past. See how simple that was? Really, figuring out how to use iTunes when the program goes awry is almost always a matter of determining what could possibly be wrong with the program. Most of the time, a few options have been de-selected or selected, and these settings can be changed quite easily.

One Slight Drawback to Toggling

Even though you can switch iTunes Match on and off, there is one problem with this method. Once you have turned your Match account back on again, you will only be able to activate songs that are already in your iTunes Match master account. So, if you’ve downloaded some tracks when iTunes Match was off, these songs will simply disappear once you’ve turned Match back on. To make sure that songs are included in your Match library, you will have to re-download the songs from iTunes Match. Otherwise, the toggling trick mentioned above works very well when it comes to a song or two that you want to add to your iPhone right now without waiting for iTunes Match.